The present invention is applicable to radio communication systems for radio packet transmission over an uplink in Evolved UTRA and the fourth generation mobile radio communication scheme.
Among these systems, for example, in Evolved UTRA (UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) Terrestrial Radio Access) defined by an international standardization organization (3GPP), improvement of the data rate and the frequency efficiency at cell edges is one important requirement. For the improvement of the data rate and the frequency efficiency at cell edges, macro-diversity is one important technique for packet synthesizing between different base stations (inter-cell) or between different sectors within the same base station.
For example, uplink soft-handover between cells can increase the data rate at cell edges to about 10-15% compared to hard-handover.
For this reason, inter-cell macro-diversity is an effective technique from the viewpoint of improved user throughput at cell edges.
Non-patent document 1: 3PPG TR 25.896